After his film “Everything Everywhere All at Once” won Best Picture, Ke Huy Quan hugged Harrison Ford at the Academy Awards.
The tearful embrace was an emotional reunion with Ford, Quan’s 1984 “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” co-star. Eva Sereny’s recently released images show them hanging together while filming when they became friends.
Quan made his acting debut in “Temple of Doom,” as Indy’s boisterous youngster sidekick Short Round. Star Ford was 40 and he was 12.
“When he opened that envelope and read the title, it made our win for Best Picture even more special,” Quan told Variety of Ford’s Oscar announcement. “When I ran onstage, I pointed at him and he pointed back, and I hugged him.”
“I just couldn’t help myself,” Quan remarked. “I want to love this man completely. Harrison Ford got a nice cheek kiss.”
After his early success with “The Goonies” and “Encino Man” in the 1980s and ’90s, Quan struggled to find work in Hollywood.
“Everything Everywhere” was the actor’s first major part in 20 years, and Steven Spielberg, his “Temple of Doom” director, thanked him after he won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar.
“After winning, I met Steven Spielberg, who gave me my first chance,” he said “Good Morning America.”
I got a tremendous hug and he said, “Ke, you are now an Academy Award-winning actor.”
Before that, he was Short Round, joking with Ford and Kate Capshaw, Spielberg’s wife, on a life-changing experience.As a behind-the-scenes photographer for the first three “Indiana Jones” films, Sereny photographed many memorable moments between the two stars.
Sereny’s personal photographs of Ford and little Ke in Sri Lanka show them caressing, horsing, and riding elephants.
“Of course, working on a Spielberg movie is something very special,” wrote Sereny, who died in 2021, in “Through Her Lens: The Stories Behind the Photography of Eva Sereny.”
Just watching Steven direct is amazing. He has every shot figured out.”
The fifth “Indiana Jones” film, “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” stars Ford and opens June 30.
The latest chapter will not feature Quan, despite his “secretly hoping” for it.
“But honestly, Steven has given me so much — not one movie, but two movies,” Quan told Variety.
“They were the first to put an Asian face in a big Hollywood movie.”